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Business consultant vs principal consultant

The differences between business consultants and principal consultants can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a principal consultant has an average salary of $116,478, which is higher than the $87,214 average annual salary of a business consultant.

The top three skills for a business consultant include data analysis, project management and strong analytical. The most important skills for a principal consultant are cloud, business development, and C #.

Business consultant vs principal consultant overview

Business ConsultantPrincipal Consultant
Yearly salary$87,214$116,478
Hourly rate$41.93$56.00
Growth rate11%11%
Number of jobs128,033143,753
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Average age4444
Years of experience4-

What does a business consultant do?

A business consultant is an individual who works directly with business owners on developing a business plan and identifying their marketing needs. Business consultants offer business owners a wide range of services, such as supplementing existing staff, provide expertise in a specific market, and influencing other people. To increase revenue in business, business consultants should have experience success with the previous business owners. Business consultants must also have a bachelor's degree in business management and received years of field training.

What does a principal consultant do?

A principal consultant is responsible for evaluating business' needs and opportunities, identifying potential leads to create project proposals, and maintaining strong business relationships that would generate revenues and increase the organization's profitability. Principal consultants must be up-to-date with the current market trends to ensure that the business adapts to the industry's changes. They also initiate new product development to expand its brand image, working closely with the marketing team for marketing strategies and promotions.

Business consultant vs principal consultant salary

Business consultants and principal consultants have different pay scales, as shown below.

Business ConsultantPrincipal Consultant
Average salary$87,214$116,478
Salary rangeBetween $64,000 And $117,000Between $90,000 And $150,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateAlaskaOregon
Best paying companyZSPure Storage
Best paying industryTechnologyFinance

Differences between business consultant and principal consultant education

There are a few differences between a business consultant and a principal consultant in terms of educational background:

Business ConsultantPrincipal Consultant
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 67%Bachelor's Degree, 68%
Most common majorBusinessBusiness
Most common collegeNorthwestern UniversityWestern Carolina University

Business consultant vs principal consultant demographics

Here are the differences between business consultants' and principal consultants' demographics:

Business ConsultantPrincipal Consultant
Average age4444
Gender ratioMale, 62.8% Female, 37.2%Male, 75.8% Female, 24.2%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 8.0% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 8.9% Asian, 13.4% White, 65.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2%Black or African American, 6.4% Unknown, 4.6% Hispanic or Latino, 9.4% Asian, 8.8% White, 70.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage12%11%

Differences between business consultant and principal consultant duties and responsibilities

Business consultant example responsibilities.

  • Partner with PMO and lead testing effort to ensure completeness of test data sets and to manage risk.
  • Manage requirements gathering, identify KPI s, and oversee design and architecture decisions.
  • Manage various SOX, HIPAA and PCI compliance projects from the planning stages to completion.
  • Apply the specific rules for HIPAA X12, Medicaid manage care requirements and industry best practices for transaction handling.
  • Manage external technology suppliers to assure functional operations and system architecture meet the business needs.
  • Perform successful UAT - good knowledge & experience in SDLC - SQL querying and data analysis.
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Principal consultant example responsibilities.

  • Manage project risks and issues throughout the SDLC phases, report project/program statuses to steering committee along with financial information.
  • Provide PMO office support including improving governance processes to achieve expect results.
  • Manage numerous engagements that are either custom development or package software (ERP) implementations and integration.
  • Project leadership, strategy and health information management consulting services to healthcare and manage care organizations and health information technology companies.
  • Design database and business objects using XML schema.
  • Create XMLType view to generate xml output from a SQL query.
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Business consultant vs principal consultant skills

Common business consultant skills
  • Data Analysis, 10%
  • Project Management, 9%
  • Strong Analytical, 8%
  • Analytics, 7%
  • Healthcare, 5%
  • Tableau, 5%
Common principal consultant skills
  • Cloud, 11%
  • Business Development, 10%
  • C #, 7%
  • Customer Satisfaction, 6%
  • Java, 5%
  • Project Management, 4%

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